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5 Amazingly terrible WhatsApp fails

Text: Staff; Photography: People Images

July 11, 2017

Forgetting which group you’re in, accidentally sexting your mum… it doesn’t take much for WhatsApp to go horribly wrong. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here, five women share their ultimate WhatsApp fails and let’s just say, social suicide was the least of their worries…

1 Group chat hell

Aww, strengthening family ties the WhatsApp way.

It happened to me: “I got to my mother-in-law’s before my husband, and she kept asking me whether we had bought her brother a birthday present. Thinking I was texting him, I wrote: ‘Your mum is doing my head in.’ Then her phone buzzed. And his dad’s. They just put their phones away silently.” – Sarah, 32

2 Double-tick anxiety

Two tiny ticks = hours wasted staring at your phone.

It happened to me: “I was dating a guy called Dan and decided to send him some sexy pics. But I was a bit tipsy and ended up WhatsApping them to Dad. Luckily, there were no blue ticks, so I knew he hadn’t seen them yet. I phoned my mum and asked her to delete the messages but, days later, I remembered that his WhatsApp saves all pictures to his photo library.” – Sophie, 26

3 Exit group and delete

Knowing when to leave a group is a social minefield – but sometimes swiping to exit is the only option.

It happened to me: “I don’t use WhatsApp very often, so I was totally bewildered last Christmas when my tattoo guy sent a ‘Merry Xmas’ greeting to his (many) contacts. They almost all replied with porn vids and dick pics. I’ve never felt so enlightened by my photo feed.” – Katie, 31

4 Emoji fail

It happened to me: “My friend created a WhatsApp group for everyone she knew, and one day she announced that she was getting a divorce. They’d only been married for a little while, so it was a total shock. I saw the message immediately and was so flummoxed that I sent a massive thumbs-up sign by mistake. I was first to respond, so it was just left hanging there for some time, while I frantically typed a cringing apology. I wanted to set my phone on fire.” – Leona, 34

5 The dick-pic slip

You know you’ve reached peak sext when your #ThirstyThursday group chat ends with a real-life Slippery Nipple, or when your cleaner meets your latest Tinder hookup, in the form of a cock shot.

It happened to me: “We were letting a room in a houseshare, and a girl texted me through WhatsApp, asking if I could send her a photo of the room. Earlier that day, though, my boyfriend had sent me a rather rude pic of himself – and I accidentally sent that instead. I messaged her again to apologise, but it just made it look worse. I’m lucky she didn’t send the police round.” – Jane, 28